Search the Website

Fairfield University's DiMenna-Nyselius Library will present a free, public lecture to commemorate the 10th anniversary of its building, on Monday, October 31 at 4 p.m. The event will also serve to announce DigitalCommons@Fairfield, an open access institutional repository highlighting the scholarship of Fairfield faculty that launches in January.

James Neal, Columbia University's vice president for Information Services and university librarian, will give a talk in the Multimedia Room entitled, "But It's Our Stuff !! The Changing Landscape of Scholarly Communication," exploring the open access movement. (Refreshments will be served. Please RSVP to jgarrity@fairfield.edu.)

Neal provides leadership for university academic computing and a system of 22 libraries at the Ivy League institution. His responsibilities include the Columbia Center for New Media Teaching and Learning, the Center for Digital Research and Scholarship, the Copyright Advisory Office, and the Center for Human Rights Documentation and Research.

Neal's talk will also serve as an opportunity to discuss the Library's new Institutional Repository - DigitalCommons@Fairfield. It is part of an effort to increase the visibility of faculty members' scholarship, maximize its research impact, and contribute to worldwide accessibility, according to Joan Overfield, university librarian and director of library services at Fairfield. "The Library is very excited to offer DigitalCommons@Fairfield highlighting scholarship at our University," she said.

Individual, permanent URLs will be assigned to each faculty member's full-text article. Individual faculty research pages will be created by the Library for those faculty with work in the repository.

"Mr. Neal's visit gives us the opportunity to begin the educational process with our faculty about open access and scholarly publishing," said Jackie Kremer, senior reference and outreach librarian at Fairfield. "Mr. Neal has served on the Scholarly Communication committees as chair of the Steering Committee of SPARC - the Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition. SPARC's focus is to encourage the emergence of new scholarly communication models that expand the dissemination of scholarly research and thereby reduce financial pressures on libraries."

Faculty members who post their work in Digital Commons will 'maximize discoverability.' That's because this platform is optimized for visibility through Google, Google Scholar and other search engines, resulting in the scholarship being highly visible and easily discoverable by other scholars around the world and by students and colleagues here at Fairfield.

Kremer and Christina McGowan, assistant university librarian for reference and circulation services at Fairfield, will be giving an online presentation for the University of Maryland's Center for Intellectual Property, on November 9 at 1 p.m. Entitled "Academic Integrity Programs @ Fairfield," they will discuss Fairfield's highly effective library-sponsored workshop series on Academic Integrity designed for faculty and university professional staff, as well as the integration of academic integrity issues into the university's first year experience program.